


The Avengers Meet the Outside World

by elusive_ellipsis



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Assemble Vol. 1 (2012), Avengers Family, Domestic Avengers, Gen, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 00:36:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20380768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elusive_ellipsis/pseuds/elusive_ellipsis
Summary: The Avengers have been sent away for some R & R after New York, and are incredibly bored. When someone comes to their door one evening, they seize their opportunity to talk to someone who hasn't tired of them yet.





	The Avengers Meet the Outside World

It was a rainy Tuesday somewhere in the middle of nowhere, a place that Director Fury had insisted was just the break that the Avengers needed. Three days in, they weren’t particularly inclined to agree. They were sharing a tiny cottage that didn’t seem to have quite left the 1950s yet and had long since given up the pretence that they didn’t hate it.  
“When do we get to go home again?” asked Tony, walking into the living room, where Natasha sat on the sofa reading an old magazine that looked dangerously close to falling apart, and Bruce was reading a book in an armchair that faced the window, because that was the closest you could get to something interesting when there was no TV.  
“If you want to walk back, no one’s stopping you,” said Natasha, not looking up from her magazine.  
“Are you kidding me? That’s way too much exercise.”  
Tony sat on the sofa next to Natasha, who looked up at last and hit him on the head with her magazine which, miraculously, stayed intact.  
“Hey, what was that for?”  
“I’m on the sofa.”  
“Yeah, and there’s still space.”  
“We agreed that only one person would sit here at a time, so it didn’t break, like everything else here has a tendency to.”  
“It’ll be fine.”  
“I can’t believe I agreed to come here. I want my knives back. How come Thor gets his hammer and I can’t have my knives?”  
“Probably because he could just magic it up anyway, so it’s not worth the broken windows it’ll cause.”  
“I’ll break plenty of windows if that’s all I need to do to get my knives back.”  
“Are you two going to stop talking anytime soon, or should I leave so I can read my book in peace?” said Bruce.  
Tony leaned back on the sofa, which gave a worrying groan followed by a distinct crack and sagged in middle. Natasha looked at him pointedly.  
“That totally wasn’t my fault,” he said, raising his hands.  
Natasha opened her mouth to speak, and then the doorbell rang.  
“I’ll get it,” said Steve from the kitchen next door. “Can someone watch the pasta?”  
Bruce set down his book and went to go watch the pasta. From the living room, the conversation at the door was indistinct, but Steve sounded very confused. Tony went to see what was going on, deliberately ignoring Natasha’s accusatory glare.  
“No ma'am, I haven’t considered that before,” said Steve to a woman standing in the doorway with a handful of leaflets, slightly damp from the rain. He looked over to Tony as the floorboards creaked loudly where he walked. “Tony, isn’t this just fascinating?”  
“Isn’t what fascinating?”  
“Well, this woman here is something called a Jehovah’s Witness, and she’s telling me about this whole new branch of Christianity I never knew existed.”  
“Yeah, we’re not interested, thanks,” said Tony, moving to close the door. Steve put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.  
“I’m interested,” he said.  
“No, you’re not,” Tony said pointedly. “How about you get back to cooking the pasta and I’ll deal with this, okay?”  
“There’s no need to be rude. This is interesting to me, even it isn’t to you.” Steve turned to the woman, who had been waiting patiently at the door. “I’m sorry about him. What was that you were saying?”  
“That’s okay. Not everyone can appreciate the word of Christ the first time they hear it. I hope you find your salvation soon, sir,” she said to Tony, holding out a leaflet for him to take. “Why don’t you read this when you have a little time?”  
“I don’t like being handed things,” said Tony, turning his back on the woman before promptly walking back into the living room.  
“Anything interesting?” Natasha asked, still on the sofa despite its collapse.  
“Steve is talking to a Jehovah’s Witness,” said Tony, this time taking Bruce’s armchair to sit on.  
“Oh. How’s that going?”  
“I’m not getting involved,” he said with a sigh.  
“Something that’s too much for even the world’s most egocentric billionaire to deal with? This I have to see.”  
“I am not egocentric!” insisted Tony as Natasha walked away.  
At the front door, Steve was listening attentively to the woman’s words.  
“...and we do not engage in warfare, for, in the words of the Bible, 'happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.’”  
“Oh. That doesn’t really go too well with my career,” said Steve slightly sheepishly.  
“No one is beyond His forgiveness. What is it you do?”  
“He kills people,” said Natasha before he could respond, leaning against the doorframe. “Aliens, Nazis... you name it, he’s probably killed it.”  
“Well, it’s not quite like that that,” said Steve to the woman, who seemed lost for words. “We kill bad guys. Not just anyone. And we save a lot of people too.”  
“Well that’s... something,” said the woman. “I, er... when you say we, do you mean you two, or...”  
“Oh, no, all of us do,” said Natasha with a grin. “Even that other guy you just met. I know he doesn’t look like much, but...”  
“Hey! I can hear you!” Tony yelled from the living room.  
“Yeah, that guy. He made his money from manufacturing a hell of a lot of deadly weapons, just so you know. Lotta blood on his hands.”  
“Oh...”  
“Oh, and we’ve got a god upstairs. Do you want to meet him?” Without waiting for a response, Natasha yelled upstairs. “Thor!”  
Steve looked perhaps even more at a loss than the Jehovah’s Witness. “Natasha, I really don’t think...”  
Thor came to the door, twirling his hammer idly in his left hand. “Is everything alright?”  
“...that this is a good idea,” said Steve under his breath.  
“Everything’s fine. How about you introduce yourself to this woman here?” said Natasha.  
“Why?”  
“No reason. I just think she’d like to know who you are.”  
“Okay then.” Thor offered a smile to the woman. “Hi. I’m Thor. Odinson. Of Asgard. Pleasure to meet you. What’s your name?”  
“He’s an alien as well as a god, in case you were wondering,” added Natasha.  
“...I’m Mary...” she said, glancing to her sides in search of an escape. “But... there's no – I mean, Thor’s not real, he's, he's an old myth. No one believes that anymore. There’s only one god.”  
“Yes, well the modern people of Earth are a lot harder to impress. In the old days, bit of lightning and that was it, they were convinced. Things aren’t what they were. Still, I don’t mind too much. Gives me a lot more free time.”  
At that moment, Clint walked down the stairs, yawning. He’d been disrupted from a perfectly good nap with all the commotion at the door.  
“What’s going on?” he asked.  
“Natasha has decided to have a bit of fun with Mary here,” said Steve. “There’s really no need for it.”  
Natasha tried to give him an innocent smile, but it turned out as more of a self-satisfied smirk.  
“Great,” he said, rubbing his eyes and walking into the kitchen, where there was the smell of burning. Bruce walked out just after he entered, with an apologetic look on his face.  
“Sorry guys, I burned the pasta.”  
Natasha turned to him. “How do you burn pasta?”  
“I don’t even know. Do you want to just get a takeaway?”  
“Probably for the best,” said Thor.  
“I'll go call up that Chinese place,” said Natasha, walking along the hallway to the only phone in the house, and ancient dial-up.  
Clint walked out of the kitchen as the smoke alarm went off, a shrill, insistent beeping.  
“You really did a number on that pasta,” he said.  
Mary simply stood there, her mouth hanging open.  
“Why is there a woman standing in the doorway?” asked Bruce.  
“She’s a Jehovah’s Witness,” said Steve. “It’s very interesting. Or, it might be. I wouldn’t know, given that I’ve barely had a chance to talk to her. Did you know they don’t celebrate birthdays?”  
“Probably just as well for you,” said Thor. “How old are you now? A hundred?”  
“I think I probably ought to go...” said Mary, backing slowly away from the madhouse she was wishing she’d never encountered.  
“Nice meeting you,” said Steve as she turned and started running. He closed the door. “That was uncalled for.”  
“It was fun,” said Natasha as she tried to get the dial to turn on the phone. She hit it, hard, and was pleased that it actually seemed to work now. “We don’t exactly get much of that around here.”  
“Is anybody going to deal with that alarm?” Thor asked as it continued to beep. Clint waved a teatowel at it half-heartedly. Thor swung his hammer at it and it shut up straight away.  
“Much better,” Bruce said.  
Tony walked out of the living room. Everyone turned to look at him.  
“Did I miss anything?”


End file.
